Epson T3270 Printer

[SteveS]

I'm on the fence about what to replace our aging 4880 with. We currently run this printer with Accurip Black Pearl and it is still working pretty good even after 8 years. We converted it to the BLACK MAX all black ink system with refillable cartridges about 4 years ago and it's doing fine. Original print head, no clogged all nozzles firing. I think we've cleaned the bottom of the head a few times but not many.

As time progresses, I know the thing to do is to move forward and put in a new printer. CTS is still too expensive to justify in our small shop so I believe at this point, we'd be best served continuing using film output. It's worked well for us. I know and have researched all the pros and cons of CTS and even had an offer to put one in our shop for a year free of charge with the expectation that we'd commit after that term. I just couldn't justify the cost, even with the full year. That's another story...

Back to the topic at hand. I can't seem to get a straight answer out of our supplier or Freehand on whether the Epson T3270 can utilize the all black setup. I have received mixed, cryptic responses on whether or not the machine will work like my 4880 in that regard. I get that the warranty will likely be voided if you use refillable carts and have even been told that they are not available for this printer. Heck, they're everywhere. And some even have automatically ink carts with chips that auto reset.

So...my questions are....

1) Are there any peers out there using the Epson T3270 that can offer some insight?
2) If so, are you using the printer as designed with Accurip and only using one black cart?
3) Can anyone confirm that after the warranty expires, can the Accurip Black Pearl drive all 5 carts using the all black system?
4) If not, what advantages are there to keeping the color cartridges in a screen print shop that doesn't provide or offer any large format color printing services?

I'm guessing that Freehand and Epson have some arrangement to not discuss the all black option because of the 1 year warranty issue but I am not sure. I just know that it is a money saving feature to use all black ink carts if that is how you intend to use the printer. Otherwise, I assume, like a DTG machine, normal automatic maintenance cleanings just waste the color inks.

Any feedback on all this would be appreciated from anyone with practical experience with this printer. I've had enough conjecture with this to last a lifetime.

Thanks in advance.

[RICK STEFANICK]

I know LAWSON sells and supports Epson DTG'S and other Epson printers. You may be able to get information not published from one of tech guys or even sales. It's worth a phone call

[ZooCity]

Ran a pair of 4800's for years.  Great printers but when they both went down and the replacement I bought arrived half doa we bought a T3270.   

As a disclaimer, Epson bought ours back.  It wouldn't print films the same length.  I'm guessing it was just a lemon, something wrong with the sensor/media feed likely. 

So other than that key issue we had, I think it's a great printer and you might not need all black to run it.  It basically has a fixed pair of heads per color.  Faster than the 48xx series and just as clean printing.  Only five carts to deal with and you can nozzle clean them in sets v. all inks.  If you run your dye black in the MK slot you can clean that head alone as needed and waste nothing else.

The package Epson sells uses their OEM ink and their new OEM positive film.  The film is nice, prints look good with OEM ink but they are not visually opaque and I have not received densitometer readings for it so that might be a leap of faith for some.  The version of AR packaged with the printer is identical to the standard one, just only works on those Epsons. (epson will tell you otherwise)  All black option is almost certainly turned off to discourage use of non-oem media.  Upside of the system is full warranty support from Epson, which is good, and you could run OEM ink and use the unit for signage or other stuff around the shop.  The T3270 can print poster board and a lot of different media but the OEM media is of course spendy from Epson.   

Or, you can buy a T3270 and run std AR on it with you choice of ink like with any printer and run all black.  Get a squaretrade warranty on it in case epson cheeses out on the non-OEM excuse but I find they are not nearly as hard nosed about that these days.   I have a full set of accessories up for sale right now if you end up going with the T printer.

[SteveS]

Ran a pair of 4800's for years.  Great printers but when they both went down and the replacement I bought arrived half doa we bought a T3270.   

As a disclaimer, Epson bought ours back.  It wouldn't print films the same length.  I'm guessing it was just a lemon, something wrong with the sensor/media feed likely. 

So other than that key issue we had, I think it's a great printer and you might not need all black to run it.  It basically has a fixed pair of heads per color.  Faster than the 48xx series and just as clean printing.  Only five carts to deal with and you can nozzle clean them in sets v. all inks.  If you run your dye black in the MK slot you can clean that head alone as needed and waste nothing else.

The package Epson sells uses their OEM ink and their new OEM positive film.  The film is nice, prints look good with OEM ink but they are not visually opaque and I have not received densitometer readings for it so that might be a leap of faith for some.  The version of AR packaged with the printer is identical to the standard one, just only works on those Epsons. (epson will tell you otherwise)  All black option is almost certainly turned off to discourage use of non-oem media.  Upside of the system is full warranty support from Epson, which is good, and you could run OEM ink and use the unit for signage or other stuff around the shop.  The T3270 can print poster board and a lot of different media but the OEM media is of course spendy from Epson.   

Or, you can buy a T3270 and run std AR on it with you choice of ink like with any printer and run all black.  Get a squaretrade warranty on it in case epson cheeses out on the non-OEM excuse but I find they are not nearly as hard nosed about that these days.   I have a full set of accessories up for sale right now if you end up going with the T printer.

So you are definitely confirming that....

1) The T3270 and Accurip Black Pearl WILL NOT allow turning all channels to black? Not just off by default, but grayed out and NOT selectable for all black cartridges?

2) If left to print only one channel with dye ink for film, what would you expect would happen to the other channels with CMY and the other black if never used? Is there a automated maintenance cycle that runs intermittent cleaning cycles without user input?

[ZooCity]

1. Standard AR (not the packaged rip version from Epson) should run all black from what I recall.

2.  The CMY heads should be ok if not used frequently, the capping and maint cycles on the T3270 seemed good to me with no clog issues at least on the our black.  If used never, just put cleaning carts in from the get go. 

Fwiw, we ran ours with Accuink in the PK, cleaning solution in all others.  Epson hadn't released the printer package with AR and their own film yet.  If you are on the fence about the official epson package have them send you some sample films and check pricing to see how it all compares.

[ixpoz]

I have very limited experience with this printer, but I took a screen printing class with Vastex and they had just installed the t3270. We did some testing and found that with the RIP (I don't remember if it was  accurip or film maker), the OEM inks performed very well. Even though the inks were not opaque, there must be a UV blocker incorporated in the inks, because we intentionally overexposed and achieved great results.

[DonR]

I've been using the T3270 for the past several month with OEM ink. No problems, no clogs, and it prints fast and clean. Buy the large capacity black cartridge and the OEM ink cost is not bad. We use Accurip BlackPearl.

[SteveS]

So I just received a reply from Freehand and I was very direct in my questions.

They say that is you have refillable carts for the T3270 and Accurip Black Pearl, then you can most definitely turn on all 5 channels to print their dye black BlackMax inks.

Found these here...
http://www.inkpro2day.com/epson-surecolor-t3000-t3270-refillable-printer-ink-cartridges/

This is a relief because I most desperately don't want to buy a Epson 4900 based on all the terrible reviews of that piece of hardware.

This is good news for me. I hope this thread proves helpful to others as they look into retiring an older film printer.

[SteveS]

I've been using the T3270 for the past several month with OEM ink. No problems, no clogs, and it prints fast and clean. Buy the large capacity black cartridge and the OEM ink cost is not bad. We use Accurip BlackPearl.

Hey Don,

Can you independently confirm the ability to turn on the "All Black" printing in Accurip Black Pearl in the configuration dialogue if you were using all 5 black cartridges? I figure if the driver you have shows the check box not grayed out, then that's a sure fire independent confirmation that all cartridges can be black and you can turn that on. If that check box is not visible or grayed out, than that would be confirmation that it will not work.

Thanks for checking that if you don't mind.

[DonR]

Confirmed... You can set it to use all 5 black cartridges. I would suggest keeping the color cartridges and printing from one channel. When using my old 4900, I have found that printing with one channel will give you a sharper print with better dots. Ink cost stays the same, you just have to replace the one cartridge more often. Also leaves open the option to print full color stuff.

[SteveS]

Confirmed... You can set it to use all 5 black cartridges. I would suggest keeping the color cartridges and printing from one channel. When using my old 4900, I have found that printing with one channel will give you a sharper print with better dots. Ink cost stays the same, you just have to replace the one cartridge more often. Also leaves open the option to print full color stuff.

Thank you Don!

We just don't have the time to try and develop a wide format color printing market. We get very few requests for that kind of work and there are sign shops around us a dime a dozen that do that work. Spending a minute's time to try and compete with them, in my mind, would be a waste of resources. It's just not our business model.

If, however, this printer would also contour cut so that we could easily produce custom shape stickers or plain bumper stickers, that would be fantastic. But I am 99.9% certain that this printer does not have a plotter cut function built in. It's sole purpose would be printing film for screen printing.

[Hazzmatte]

Coming late to the party but I have to agree with a couple others about Epson OEM ink. All black ink systems are completely unnecessary - but if you have one that's great too.  Epson inks have uv blockers that work great for film positives. The new ink that comes in the t3270 and the previous gen k3 inks in the stylus pro printers perform the same. I too took the vastex class and we went crazy testing the uv blockers in Epson ink. We printed a positive with only yellow and red ink. With the yellow and magenta positive (kinda looked orange), exposed a screen (and we cooked it-led exposer for 4 mins plus) and it washed out. It's not about how opaque the positive!  So in our print shop we use filmmaker and print positives using only the PK channel on our 7880. When we do our density test we don't even use the darkest setting. If you hold our positive up to the light you can slightly see though it. BOTTOM LINE OEM Epson in is more then sutiable for positives. Now thes test we done using professional led exposure units. If your using you dads work light for a source I have no idea how that would work.

[Sbrem]

FWIW, we run that, with AccuRIP Black Pearl, one channel, you really don't need to run all black. When set up, you should be using the Photo Black, not the Matte. The films are fine, just be sure to use films that like pigment based ink. Is it totally black? No, but it doesn't need to be totally black, it just has to filter out the UV light of the exposure unit.

Steve

[bimmridder]

Amberlith and Rubylith certainly were not black

[Sbrem]

Amberlith and Rubylith certainly were not black

I was going to use that example, but figured if he's new, he wouldn't have had any "exposure" to it, LOL!

Steve